Edwina was actually happy. They’d found a suitable dress, and for once had agreed on the color and the simple style. But not the price.
“Forget the price, will you, Ed? Just this once? We have no time to squander. Now for shoes.”
“Shoes,” Edwina mumbled. She’d come to Chicago in her worst possible clothes . . . and now this.
“You can’t wear your tennis shoes or the Birkenstocks.” Edwina wanted to laugh at her sister’s tut-tut. All troubles aside, Edwina found herself twirling in the ankle-length black dress. The cut of the dress fit her body shape perfectly.
“Ed, you look... well, wonderful.” Cecelia cocked her head first to the left, then the right, and back to the left again. “Really, you’ve lost weight, I can tell.”
“I really like the dress, Cece.... Thank you.”
“Oh,” her sister fanned the air with her newly painted mauve nails. “It’s worth it to see you so... so pretty. She grabbed a hank of her hair and held it on top of her head. Your hair looks good swept up like that. It’s so thick—I’m jealous.”
“Jealous?” Edwina swirled and stared at her sister.
“Yes,” Cecelia admitted reluctantly. “You have nice hair.”
Edwina’s thoughts flew back to Bertie’s same comment. “Thanks, really . . .”
“No time for foolishness. Let’s go. Best seats in the house mean we cannot be late.”
For once Edwina enjoyed her sister’s bossiness. She felt like a queen, even though she knew she was far from it. It still felt nice to receive a compliment from someone who was so totally different from herself.
Two hours later, Edwina rose from her seat slowly and followed her sister. She heard nothing except the last song as the music crescendo rose higher and higher and the lovers, entwined in each other’s arms, sank to the stage floor and died. It was so unexpected, she wanted to cry. She’d thought all along they would end up happily ever after. Wasn’t that how romantic stories were supposed to end?
“Well?” Cecelia called over her shoulder as she cut through the crowd.
“It was so sad.”
“Merely pathos.”
“It was more than mere sentiment... it was dreadful.”
“How can you feel things so intensely?” Cecelia had stopped, turned, and now stood staring at her.
“It’s a story. It can happen to real people, to us. It’s sad, that’s all.”
“Sad or no, that’s not the point. Because of the play’s pathos, no one will dare tell the ending, creating a scintillating innuendo. It will draw more patrons, which in turn is more money, which equals exquisite success in numbers and dollars.”
“Is that what the play meant to you?”
“Of course. What else? People are just people—it’s the success that counts. Why else would someone go to all the work? Just for fun?”
Cecelia’s light laugh disturbed Edwina deeply. Her sister was smart and beautiful, but she lacked any depth or understanding of humanity that Edwina could see. And for that she was sad.
“I’ll check the numbers tomorrow and let you know. At one hundred eighty dollars a ticket, you can just bet they little more than broke even this first night. But the next few nights should stir enough interest in the community as to double or triple attendance.”
“One hundred eighty dollars each?” Edwina could not think past the amount and then realized a very profound thing. She was just as money-conscious as Cecelia. They were at different ends of the spectrum, but both were extreme. Edwina could not imagine why she had not seen the trait in herself before this.
Perhaps it had been the trip to Scotland. She’d experienced something new, fresh, exhilarating.
The ride home in Cece’s elegant black Cadillac was silent. Each had a lot to think about.